Roger Ebert reviews a movie after watching only 8 minutes of it

There was a movie released in 1975 called AT LONG LAST LOVE. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich (who was allowed to make movies back then) it was a musical with Cole Porter songs inexplicably sung by the astonishingly tone-deaf Cybil Shepherd. My partner David and I were in a full theatre watching this jaw-dropping spectacle. After about an hour and fifteen minutes of this David shouted out, “Wait! It gets better!” The entire audience exploded in laughter.

We walked out of the theatre (okay – ran) and commiserated over the poor movie critics who had to sit through this and every film all the way through. I couldn’t do it. I even once walked out of a movie I had worked on. But reviewers need to stick it out.

You would think.

Roger Ebert (a critic I admire) recently admitted to writing his review on the indie feature TRU LOVED after watching only eight minutes of it. Thumbs down, Roger! If that had been AT LONG LAST LOVE you wouldn’t have even seen the first duet between Cybil and her virtuoso singing co-star, Burt Reynolds.

It seems to me Roger has now committed both cardinal sins of film criticism – hosting an Oscar red carpet show and reviewing a movie without seeing it (granted the first sin is worse). What does this do for his credibility and the credibility of his judgement-passing brethren? People often mistrust reviewers anyway. Does Jeffrey Lyons love every single movie he’s ever seen just so he can get his name and blurb in every ad?

For a night of Levine & Isaacs one-act plays a number of years ago, the critic for Variety knitted during the entire performance. But at least he was there. And he stayed till the end. And he finished his muffler.

Gone are the days of Pauline Kael and film criticism as art itself. You may have disagreed with her but you had to admire the thought and effort she poured into each review, even MOONRAKER.

By the way, Ms. Kael had this to say about AT LONG LAST LOVE:

“Peter Bogdanovich's stillborn musical comedy-a relentlessly vapid pastiche of 30s Art Deco romantic-mixup movies.”

So unlike David and I, she liked it.

I wonder, are the standards of reviewing so much lower these days because the movies are too? THE LOVE GURU got a few raves. I’m not saying that all critics are bad. There are a few still like to read. Elvis Mitchell in the NY Times, Carina Chocano in the LA Times, and the guy from Screw magazine (he doesn’t list his name).

But for me there is only one standout. Thank goodness for Anthony Lane in the New Yorker. Incisive, detailed, sometimes scholarly, and devastatingly funny, Anthony Lane is my only must-read critic. And from what I understand, he not only sits through every movie he reviews, he sits through it twice.

Two thumbs up.